A day of contrasts.
I had a nice workout with my girlfriends, followed by a wonderful lunch with my grandmother at Fox’s Deli (matzo ball soup and latkes and pastrami sandwiches…yum!). She recently moved here to Rochester, where she’s in a wonderful assisted living facility called Wolk Manor. I feel so lucky to stil have her in my life, and even luckier that my kids are now getting the chance to get to know her. Very few people are able to talk with and learn from their great-grandparents. It’s truly a gift for her to get to know them, and even more of a gift for them to get to know her.
I left lunch and went to the elementary school to pick up my kids (they’re in a town-sponsored day camp held at their school). Walking in, I noticed one of Alex’s friends standing by himself near the door, looking distraught. I asked him if he was okay, and while his words said “yes,” his quivering lip and glistening eyes said “no.” I happen to know his parents are going through an unpleasant divorce, so I asked him who was picking him up from camp, and he told me his grandma and grandpa were coming. Concerned, I talked to the head counselor, and when I left I saw him sitting with her on the grass with the other kids who hadn’t been picked up.
Two hours later, my maternal spidey-sense was proven right. I got a call from the head counselor, asking if I had working phone numbers for either of the parents. (I didn’t…the mom’s number is disconnected, and the father’s number is blocked on our caller ID.) Apparently nobody had shown up for him, and they’d taken him to the after-camp care program at the town park (he’s not enrolled in it), and were trying to track a parent down. I offered to come wait with him (taking him home with me would have made it impossible for them to find him if/when they showed up), bring him dinner, etc. They promised to call me if the mom didn’t show up. Since they didn’t call back, I assume she did. But I’m haunted by the sight of his face, full of doubt and fear and loneliness. What does it do to a 7-year-old to not know if anyone’s there for him? To wonder if he’s been forgotten by the adults who are supposed to be his support? Yes, I know, there are far worse tragedies in the world. But that doesn’t mean this one didn’t touch me, and make me hug my children a little closer tonight.
I ended the day on a cheerier note. My mother needed network connectivity for her G3 Powerbook in her brand-new attic study, and my stepfather’s been fighting with the wiring process. I took matters into my own hands, and stopped by CompUSA, where they had a great deal on a NetGear wireless router—$29.99 (after $30 in rebates). I grabbed the old WaveLAN card I’d used before I got my TiBook, and headed over to her house. Twenty minutes after I arrived, the router was up and running, and I was online with my TiBook. An hour after that, I finally solved the OS9/airport/wavelan/tcp/ip configuration problems, and she was online as well. The minor hassles and expense were more than offset by the look on her face when I carried her untethered computer out to the front porch and told her to check her email.
Came home, put the kids to bed, and found that all the URL-changing surrounding the blog had managed to land me on Blogdex and Popdex. So welcome to all of you who landed here because you were surfing “the popular sites.” Guess this is my 10 minutes of fame.
www.flickr.com
|
